Ernest Hemingway Quotes
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You make something from things that have happened and from things that exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, and you make something through your invention that is truer than anything true and alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality.
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Fish," the old man said. "Fish, you are going to have to die anyway. Do you have to kill me too?
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Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it.
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Do not think about sin, he thought. There are enough problems now without sin. Also I have no understanding of it.
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When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.
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Actually if a writer needs a dictionary he should not write. He should have read the dictionary at least three times from beginning to end and then have loaned it to someone who needs it. There are only certain words which are valid and similes (bring me my dictionary) are like defective ammunition (the lowest thing I can think of at this time).
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Those who say they want to be writers, and aren’t writing, don’t.
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No Pilar," Agustin said. "You are not smart. You are brave. You are loyal. You have decision. You have intuition. Much decision and much heart. But you are not smart.
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For a war to be just three conditions are necessary - public authority, just cause, right motive.
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A person with increasing knowledge and sensory education may derive infinite enjoyment from wine.
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We have very primitive emotions,” he said . “It's impossible not to be competitive. Spoils everything, though.
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Write as well as you can and finish what you start.
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Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past when he was doing it.
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Failure and well-disguised cowardice are more human and more beloved.
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When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write.
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Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today. It's been that way all this year. It's been that way so many times. All of war is that way.
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For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.
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A continent ages quickly once we come. The natives live in harmony with it. But the foreigner destroys, cuts down the trees, drains the water, so that the water supply is altered, and in a short time the soil, once the sod is turned under, is cropped out and, next, it starts to blow away as it has blown away in every old country and as I had seen it start to blow in Canada. The earth gets tired of being exploited.
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Write the best story that you can and write it as straight as you can.
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Why, darling, I don't live at all when I'm not with you.
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Something, or something awful or something wonderful was certain to happen on every day in this part of Africa.
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It wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics.
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I do not need to get used to your silence. I already know it. I quite possibly love all of it.
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All a man has is pride. Sometimes you have it so much it is a sin. We have all done things for pride that we knew were impossible. We didn't care. But a man must implement his pride with intelligence and care.